Systems exist in the art for recognizing audio content by comparing received audio content with one or more reference examples of audio content and looking for a match between the received content and the reference audio content. One common method for accomplishing this task is the use of audio fingerprints, which are algorithmic signatures computed from received or reference audio content. In such fingerprint recognition systems, fingerprints generated from reference audio content are stored at a location. When received audio content is to be analyzed, a series of audio fingerprints is generated from successive samples of the received audio content and compared with the stored reference fingerprints. When a sufficiently robust similarity is found between one or more fingerprints generated from received audio content and one or more fingerprints generated from reference audio content, a match is declared. A number of systems have been defined for generating and manipulating such audio fingerprints, including, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,968,337 B2.
When audio content is received in sequential fashion, for example, when sampling ambient audio content or when receiving a broadcast audio stream, fingerprint recognition systems exhibit a latency between the commencement of the reception of a body of audio content and the declaration of a match to the received audio content with a reference audio content. This latency arises, in part, because of the finite duration of the sampling window used to gather audio samples from either a received audio source or a reference audio source when calculating an algorithmic fingerprint.
Methods and systems for reducing the latency for recognizing received audio content when using a fingerprint recognition system may be desired.